How to Tell if Your Child is Smoking Pot

Member

By A. Suzanne Wells
User-Submitted Article

Article Rating: (16 Ratings)

Teen smoking marijuana

Approximately 1 in 4 teenagers has either tried marijuana or is a regular user, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Learn to identify the signs of marijuana use so that you can help your teen if he or she is a user.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Step 1

A physical sign is red or bloodshot eyes. Your teen may try to pass this off as allergies. Take notes - is he using eye drops a lot? Are her eyes red all the time? Also notice if your child is wearing sunglasses all the time, even indoors. He may not want you to see his eyes.
Step 2

Unexplained sudden extreme hunger, or the munchies. Do you notice your child emerge from his room or the basement and dive into a bag of potato chips or start making a sandwich at breakneck speed? Smoking weed can make you ravenously hungry and eat everything in sight. The munchies can also lead to weight gain.
Step 3

An apathetic attitude. Are your child’s grades slipping? Does he no longer want to do sports or activities that he once loved? Is she spending less time with friends and even skipping school? Marijuana makes users not care about anything in life.
Step 4

Acting spaced out. Does your teen have trouble concentrating, forget things, and have trouble carrying on a conversation because he can’t remember what you just said? Are the lights on but no one is home?
Step 5

Withdrawal from family. Is your child spending more time alone in his room, at a friend’s house, or is he just absent and won’t tell you where he has been?
Step 6

Missing money. Do you notice money missing from your purse or wallet? Your child may be stealing from you to finance his drug habit.
Step 7

The smell. Marijuana has a unique smell. If you have ever been to a rock concert, you’ve smelled it. Smell her clothes, or go in his room and see if you notice a strange odor.
Step 8

Test your child. In home drug tests are available in drug and grocery stores, and online. Buy a test and make your child take it. If you are too embarrassed to buy a kit in a store, or just don’t want the world to know you are buying a drug testing kit, order one on the internet. It is personal and confidential - no one will know.
Step 9

Check the links below in the resources section for more info on teenagers and marijuana, and how to order an in home marijuana test kit.

Comments

formythreeboyz said

Flag This Comment

on 11/26/2009 Your symptoms of pot using sounds like how all teenagers act normally. Thanks for the info.

myambitions said

on 8/6/2009 This article is hilarious to me. I am a sixteen year old who used to smoke marijuana on a daily basis. "An apathetic attitude... Withdrawl... Stealing money..." I maintained a 3.5gpa and higher while I was smoking. I never withdrew from my family. I would never steal from my parents, I love them too much. God says that marijuana is ok (Genesis 1:29). Marijuana has killed 0 people in the thousands of years it's been used. Can you say the same about your so called "legal" drugs like Alchohol, and Tobacco? Man made beer, God made marijuana. Who do you trust?

chwrgy said

on 4/23/2009 i say... let your kids smoke pot and smoke it with them.. this way your warning about ecstasy and cocain and meth have WAY more meaning... what's wrong with marijuana anyway?